About This Workshop

aids2031 is hosting a small workshop for invited scholars and practitioners to examine how factors like social capital, culture and religion are shaping and are shaped by the nature, locale, and momentum of the HIV and AIDS pandemic. Social capital has been widely acknowledged and discussed among researchers and policy makers alike. Recently, however, critiques have highlighted the need to reconceptualize our understanding of social capital to emphasize its potential empowering aspects to improve the quality of life for marginalized groups. This workshop will seek to identify a conceptual approach to social capital, culture and religion relevant to policies and programs addressing AIDS in the context of the turbulence, instabilities, and environments of risk shaping the lives of individuals and groups in marginalized communities.

The goal of the workshop is to elicit innovative thinking and break new ground for ways to address the complex social and political obstacles to the successful prevention of HIV and AIDS. The workshop will examine existing data and analyses to develop recommendations for a long-term sustainable response to AIDS, which address the social, political, and economic factors shaping risk and vulnerability. You will have opportunity to contribute to cutting edge analyses of the ways in which cultural attitudes and practices, religious beliefs and institutions, and diverse forms of social capital have affected and will affect the pathways taken by AIDS in various parts of the world. In addition, you will play a key role in shaping the policy agenda for addressing AIDS over the next 25 years.